Should Students Fight for a Multi-cultural Center?

It's been a looooooong while since I last spoke with you all. I'm sorry, it's just that a brotha has been SWAMPED! But I'm sure this next topic is likely to make up for my absence.

A couple of years ago, a small minority of Chapman students launched a massive movement to secure a multi-cultural center for our students. The result was a big fat NO from the administration believing that establishing such a center would serve to divide the campus more than bring it together.

As you can imagine there have been swarms of people to disagree with this stance since many students, especially those within our school's ethnic organizations, believe that our campus is culturally divided already.

As president of the Black Student Union at Chapman and newly appointed Director of Multicultural Awareness I have been subject to a lot of perspectives on the viability of a multi-cultural center on our campus and have been involved in several social justice circles which have voiced the need to resurrect a movement to re-address this issue.

Although I am unsure as to whether or not a physical building is necessary to address multi-cultural awareness issues, I do believe that our administration must take a necessary step in engaging students of color. What I mean by this is NOT that our school doesn't provide opportunities for students of color to freely express themselves and their diverse cultural experiences, but that our school is too heavily reliant on organizations such as BSU, MECHA, API, Hawaii Club, and SASO to both integrate diverse students into our campus environment and promote multi-cultural awareness.

For that reason, I don't necessarily advocate a physical building to appease our thriving hunger for diversity and multi-cultural awareness. I do, however, believe our students must fight for a center or space on campus staffed by our students and directed by a hired official under the Dean of Students or Student L.E.A.D. Center. The purpose of this space would be to, among other things, provide students of color with internship opportunities specific to their cultural background, inform these students about off-campus resources such as barbershops and hair salons, non-profit organizations and cultural alliance networks, be a space where these organizations meet separately and collectively, and provide these students with a sense that the campus they've invested heavily in desires to make a heavier investment in broadening their humanity and horizons.

Among other things, investment in a multi-cultural center or multi-cultural awareness could lead to grander endeavors such as the establishment of ethnic studies programs like African American Studies or Chicano Studies or a large-scale art exhibit where we feature the oppressions of each culture and the triumphs of each culture.

As I conclude, I believe that if we can make space for a Holocaust remembrance museum than we should have no problem distinguishing ourselves by making a space for our students of diverse cultural backgrounds. Please, let me know what you think!